The Houston school district is launching its first elementary-level magnet offering full-immersion Mandarin Chinese instruction.

The Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion Magnet School, opening this fall at Gordon Elementary School, 6300 Ave. B in Bellaire, will serve students in pre-kindergarten through the second grade.

Students' core subjects - language arts, math, science and social science - will be taught mostly in Mandarin Chinese, which is dialect spoken in Beijing that was adopted as the official spoken language for China. Some instructional time also will be devoted to developing English skills.

Several factors went into the district's decision to create the new magnet program, Principal Bryan Bordelon said.

"There's the acknowledgement of China's growing prominence on the world stage, and we are an international city," said Bordelon, who speaks Mandarin Chinese. "We are developing future leaders of diplomacy, of business, of the community, and that doesn't start in college."

While learning Mandarin Chinese can be daunting for an adult, families will be surprised to see how quickly their children pick up the language, Bordelon said.

"Research shows children learn language far more easily than adults," he said.

Teachers will increase students' English instruction gradually as they move up in grade levels. The program also will be adding grades each year until it covers pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.

If voters approve the HISD's latest bond proposal in November, the magnet will receive funding to serve students through the eighth grade. Even if the bond proposal fails, students will have opportunities to continue building their Mandarin skills beyond elementary school. Currently, Johnston, Pershing, Pin Oak and Lanier middle schools offer Mandarin Chinese classes. At the high school level, Mandarin is taught at Houston Academy for International Studies, as well as at Bellaire and Lamar high schools and at the International High School at Sharpstown.

The magnet is looking at partnering with the high schools to create a program offering Advanced Placement Mandarin in the ninth grade, along with Mandarin courses for grades 10-12 with duel credit for high school and college.

"Students could graduate with a minor in Mandarin or just three credit hours short of it," Bordelon said.

Bordelon also is interested in adding after-school enrichment programs next winter or fall that would complement the students' daily instruction with units on Chinese history and culture. But his first priority, he said, is getting the basic magnet program under way.

Before becoming principal of the magnet program, Bordelon was an HISD teacher development specialist who provided job coaching and support for English Language Arts teachers. Because his father worked in the oil industry, Bordelon was raised abroad from age 3-17, living in Asia, the Middle East and South America. Around the time he started college, his parents moved to Beijing.

"I visited them, and I fell in love with the history, the language, the culture there," he said.

Bordelon, who also speaks some French and Spanish, began taking conversational Mandarin. He eventually progressed to academic Mandarin courses and developed an advanced proficiency in the language.

Now, he said, he's looking forward to starting the magnet school, which is opening with 19 teachers.

Six academic teachers, along with one art teacher, will be native Mandarin speakers.

The Mandarin-speaking teachers were required to be native speakers with a background in elementary education, he said.

"We wanted to make sure they were terrific teachers who happened to be native Mandarin speakers," Bordelon said.

Yi-Ching Wu, who will teach kindergarten in Mandarin, spent 12 years as an HISD ESL instructor.

"I can't wait to see the children," she said. "This is the first school like this in Houston. Hopefully, we'll get more students."

This magnet school, Smith said, has the potential to have a great impact on students' lives.

"They'll be challenged in a new way as they're immersed in two languages. I think they'll gain a lot of self-confidence and a sense of self-efficacy," Smith said. "They'll be empowered and willing to take risks and challenges later in life. They'll also gain an appreciation for different cultures."

Within a few years, Bordelon expects the magnet school to serve 600 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.

If the bond issue is approved, that number could jump to from 9,000 to 1,000. Already, he said, he has heard from other Texas districts interested in the magnet's full immersion approach. Several will make visits this fall.

While the magnet school already has filled its pre-kindergarten and kindergarten spaces, it still has about 22 openings at both the first- and second-grade levels.